Post-Darwinist

This blog provides stories that Denyse O'Leary, a Toronto-based journalist, has found to be of interest, as she covers the growing intelligent design controversy. It supports her book By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg 2004). Does the universe - and do life forms - show evidence of intelligent design? If so, Carl Sagan was wrong and so is Richard Dawkins. Now what?

Enter your search termsSubmit search form

Custom Search

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Intelligent design a BIG threat in Canada?: Well, how about an intriguing question, not a threat?

Apparently, a group called the Secular Alliance is sponsoring a meet at the MedSci building in downtown Toronto on the University of Toronto Campus on Thursday March 22, 2007, on the subject: "God and Evolution: Is Intelligent Design Ruining Science Education?"

Dr. Brian Alters, who directs McGill University?s Evolution Education Research Centre, made headlines when the SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) rejected his grant application because he did not give ?adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design Theory, was correct?. (See coverage by the Montreal Gazette and NCSE.) Dr. Dan Brooks researches evolutionary biology and biodiversity at the University of Toronto, and is currently working on a new academic journal focusing on evolution. (See his homepage and two bios.)

My own comments on Alters' attempted raid on the public purse are here.

New Book: Letter from a Christian Citizen

Apparently, there is a new book, Letter from a Christian Citizen responding to Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation. Harris should be glad to know he got heard somewhere other than the people he expected to be heard from. Go here for my own take on Harris as a non-materialist atheist who doesn't get it. (Materialist atheism is the only kind that is acceptable in North America. You have to learn to shut your eyes and ears to all kinds of evidence.)

Post-normal science?: Is that where we are now?

British journalist Melanie Phillips has an interesting item on "post-normal" science:

The ‘post-normal’ science of climate change

From the horse’s mouth — climate change theory has nothing to do with the truth. In a remarkable column in today’s Guardian Mike Hulme, professor in the school of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia and the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research — a key figure in the promulgation of climate change theory but who a short while ago warned that exaggerated forecasts of global apocalypse were in danger of destroying the case altogether — writes that scientific truth is the wrong tool to establish the, er, truth of global warming. Instead, we need a perspective of what he calls ‘post-normal’ science:Philosophers and practitioners of science have identified this particular mode of scientific activity as one that occurs where the stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent, and where values are embedded in the way science is done and spoken. It has been labelled ‘post-normal’ science…The danger of a ‘normal’ reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow.

The conflict, Phillips suggests, is between "scientists who believe in empirical observation and the truth, and ‘post-normal’ scientists who believe in ideology and lies." Reminds me somehow of Darwinism. Can't think why.

I think that "post-normal" is to science what "post-Christian" is to Christian: A failed attempt to accommodate materialism.

“We now know that the origins of variation, in the form of genetic mutations, are due to chance. We also know that those few mutations which add survival value must coincide with a suitable environment. Part of the success of evolution is thus mere coincidence. The evolutionary process that then ensues is unpredictable, and in modern parlance could be considered to be chaotic. Nature thus “selects” more than just a survivor. It blindly determines contingencies for the future path of evolution-it sets the initial conditions. Even under the relentless guidance of natural selection, the more whimsical and undirected forces of evolution can then dictate the course of things to come. The unlikely becomes what is likely to happen, and the seemingly probable becomes less so. The infallible drive toward greater fitness takes a strange turn, and natural selection seems to falter. A butterfly flaps its wings, a startled impala escapes a stalking leopard, and the course of evolution changes forever. Surprising things happen due to the niggling, mischievous, capricious nature of three very important components of evolution: chance, coincidence, and chaos. You and I are among their products.”(Jeffrey K. McKee [Professor of Anthropology, Ohio State University], “The Riddled Chain: Chance, Coincidence, and Chaos in Human Evolution,” (Rutgers University Press, 2000), p. 32)

From what I can tell, McKee is part of a group that has spent considerable effort to prevent a non-Darwinian from graduating, so we must assume that he is a good Darwinist. Go here also.

Of course, in a Darwinian world, we would not need academic freedom because everything we believe is the outcome of the competition between selfish genes, so the views of the stronger parties are very much better than right.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Thinkquote of the day: Darwinian evolution and chance?

A student recently wrote this blog, asking whether Darwinian evolution really depends on chance. That is the general view, but in any event a friend advises me that he recently bought Ohio State University prof Jeffrey K. McKee’s book A Riddled Chain: Chance, Coincidence, and Chaos in Human Evolution, and finds there the following:

“We now know that the origins of variation, in the form of genetic mutations, are due to chance. We also know that those few mutations which add survival value must coincide with a suitable environment. Part of the success of evolution is thus mere coincidence. The evolutionary process that then ensues is unpredictable, and in modern parlance could be considered to be chaotic. Nature thus “selects” more than just a survivor. It blindly determines contingencies for the future path of evolution-it sets the initial conditions. Even under the relentless guidance of natural selection, the more whimsical and undirected forces of evolution can then dictate the course of things to come. The unlikely becomes what is likely to happen, and the seemingly probable becomes less so. The infallible drive toward greater fitness takes a strange turn, and natural selection seems to falter. A butterfly flaps its wings, a startled impala escapes a stalking leopard, and the course of evolution changes forever. Surprising things happen due to the niggling, mischievous, capricious nature of three very important components of evolution: chance, coincidence, and chaos. You and I are among their products.”(Jeffrey K. McKee [Professor of Anthropology, Ohio State University], “The Riddled Chain: Chance, Coincidence, and Chaos in Human Evolution,” (Rutgers University Press, 2000), p. 32)

From what I can tell, McKee is part of a group that has spent considerable effort to prevent a non-Darwinian from graduating, so we must assume that he is a good Darwinist. Go here and here for that and here and , here for more on Dr. McKee's views.

Of course, in a Darwinian world, we would not need academic freedom, right? Everything we believe is the outcome of the competition between selfish genes, so the views of the stronger parties are much better than right.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.